Earlier quoted context omitted.
> prices have to rise 6% (assuming no efficiency improvements via pool etc, which is frankly ridiculous) If Uber raises 6%, the revenue Uber will decrease. If you raise the price, simply there will be less rides because people will find alternatives such as Lyft, taxi, or even public transportations.
An irrelevant percent of people will choose to take the bus because their $10 ride is now $10.50. I agree that they are competing against Lyft on price, but they will both sooner or later have to reach break-even; neither will run at a loss forever. Rides will shift between them, but the rideshare market as a whole will shrink trivially when it does.
This. Subsidies don't scale. When you're company does relatively few rides, you can afford to subsidize rides on the order of dollars. The more rides you do however means can only subsidize rides less and less until it has a negligible effect on a rider's decision to switch providers. At that scale, all companies will start to move away from subsidies.
Subsidies can't buy the same amount of market share at scale without losses growing linearly, which is unacceptable to investors. Subsidies will decline and should eventually disappear in mature markets even with fierce competition. Heavy subsidies really only make sense in immature markets where there is a land grab.